Author
Topic: Inter Breeding (Read 1149 times)

I have contemplated the idea of culling out the older hens in a few months when the new hatchlings start to lay. So of course the problem of inter breeding popped into my head cause the only roosters around would be fathers and brothers.

Well.... some won't be brothers but as I don't know which rooster got which chicken or which egg from which chicken produced which chick :-P There is no way of telling

So what are the problems there?

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I would not worry to much for the first couple years. after that you could swap roosters.Different story with, Hogs, cows, and some others.Rabbits are a different story all together.I can tell a little about rabbits.If you breed mother to son or daughter to father. Then the litter will tell you kine of blood line you have in the parent buck and doe.If all the off spring from this breeding turn out good then you have a good blood line.If not, you will have high mortality rate, slow growth, deformed, etc.

DO NOT use any of this litter for breeding purposes even if they all turn out fine.One more on rabbits.Do not breed direct brother and sister. half brother and half sister is ok the first time. But try to get father away the next time. cousins is fine.

Have at least two does, and if possible two bucks, but one will do.

The father daughter, mother son litter should all go to the cook pot.The only purpose for that was to check your blood lines.If the litter shows bad signs then you need to get another buck or doe or both. :)doak

Its okay for now, you don't have generation after generation of line breeding yet.I know that when breeders are trying to get certain traits and establish a line they breed father and daughter.With marans they want to get the darkest egg color possible so when a hen lays eggs they take the darkest eggs, hatch only those and then breed the daughters of those eggs back to the fathers.So even if you breed these new hatchlings back to the rooster you have you will be fine, if over time you start to see traits you don't like or any abnormalities then you need to bring new blood into the line and get yourself a new rooster then.You may want to hang on to a couple of those new roos that you just hatched and allow them to mate with some of the older hens you have before you cull them, that would open up the genetics a little more and buy you a little time before you need to bring in a new rooster.